Beloved Son
by Starry's Light
Summary: He didn't know what it was like to love until -he- came along. Then his life sort of flipped upside down. Oneshot.


**Hello! You're gonna look at the first paragraph and I bet I know what you're thinking: Why the heck is this in the second person? Well I've never written in the second person but it's also a tense so it's also a thing... so I wanted to try it, haha. Besides, I think that amplifies the emotions of this albeit short passage since it's almost like I'm putting all these feelings on top of you? Or maybe that's just me, haha.**

 **I wrote this because it sort of came to me out of nowhere. That's all I really have to say on the matter xD**

Beloved Son

You've never felt love before. Not with a distant and otherwise ignored family, not with a supposed "spouse". Nothing. You never realized the power of it, the sickening spark in your heart as you felt it and it burned you, sucking for the very essence that made you, this... _love_. Gentle, nurturing warmth—no. No, it was none of these things and yet all of them almost simultaneously. Nothing and everything. Null and the entire universe wrapped up into one single squishy reptilian body.

A son. _Your_ son.

You never thought you'd have a _son_. It wasn't exactly something that was supposed to happen, nothing you'd planned for, nothing so outside of the boundaries in your mindscape ever even dreamed of demolishing all that made up your life, once a solid castle now made up of child's building-blocks in your head. Now a crumbling, useless mess of feelings, hope and joy and world-sapping sorrow, your life was ending as it began anew.

But there was still the son to deal with, beyond all else. Because it wasn't just your world anymore: yours _and_ _his_. _His_ , too. Astounding. Hard to wrap the mind around in such a short amount of time, you could hardly begin to imagine it and yet there it was, there _he_ was, your son, your living breathing son who—who was probably _hungry_ or _scared_ or _lonely_ or—or—or _something_ , you couldn't even figure out _what_.

Maybe Kamek would, Kamek probably knew these things, why wouldn't he? You searched for Kamek. Kamek was miraculously nowhere. Probably on purpose—oh, _no—_ certainly, _certainly_ on purpose, that good-for-nothi—

And so you deemed to yourself, king of your self-proclaimed lava-ringed empire, ruler of koopas and goombas and _Kamek_ alike, that you would try to give care to this child, _your_ child, your... your... your son.

You weren't all that good at it. The lack of any sort of maternal side had some effect on it but it was also the fact that you simply weren't all that good at it, not in any way, shape, or form. Creatures built with nasty spiny turtle shells on their backs with ugly claws and the capacity to breathe fire usually weren't all that good at those sorts of things, it was just a fact of life.

And _he—_ ohhh, _he_ also had the shell and the spines and the fire, oh, he had it _all_ , just like you. Just like _you_. And you had to stop and bow your head and think about it, your hulking figure practically giving obeisance to the scarred, gray, uneven floor, you just needed a moment whenever it came into your head for the first, like, months, many months, so many months.

Eventually it was decided—probably by Kamek—most _certainly_ by Kamek—that this son would live a very awful life if you were the only one trying to raise it, it was just a fact of life. But it wasn't like anyone else in your kingdom knew a single thing about parenting: well, just look at the lot. They weren't all so bad guys, but they simply weren't cut out for not only raising their king's son but raising the devastating child of a reptile who could breathe fire, whose nearly every surface pricked a finger at even the most tender touch.

Yeah, you needed help. Your love was too much and you needed help or else things wouldn't end well. But that was the thing, wasn't it: who to choose? Obviously you couldn't take them of their own volition, nobody in their right mind would let _you_ waltz on into their house and beg for their help raising your crazy fire kid.

It wasn't like Peach could tell anyone, though.  
Stockholm's syndrome said no, no... she wouldn't.

She even seemed to _enjoy_ it. Sometimes. Alright, maybe a _little_ bit. Maybe.

Okay at least it wasn't like you didn't have a reason for constantly kidnapping her.

Of course, this way of raising a child was bound to have problems, not that you thoroughly considered them at the time; what sounded like a good idea sounded like a good idea, right? And it was all you had. You were desperate, broken... hopeful. You needed him to be happy, or at least to have a good shot of it, and _he_ enjoyed seeing her.

It didn't take long for your son to begin considering his on-and-off "nanny" of sorts as his actual flesh-and-blood mother. How that was supposed to even work you tried not to think about, but it happened and of it you only got wrecked once _again_ by her unrelenting... husband, was he? You were never sure. It was hard to tell with old Mario.

But then your son saw _Mario_ and then, well.

Your son didn't have very many friends.

His chances at friends were soiled in the ruination that was every last Koopaling, as your relatives were ever worse at raising children—see, _they_ hadn't thought of repeatedly kidnapping a princess, _they_ done messed up. Sure, he had you, his dad, but a kid needs more than a dad. He needs someone to joke with, to tease, to trick and get tricked by, someone who's always there for him except for those times he takes the last cookie or tells your secrets.

A dad just can't fill in all those roles, so much as you would've loved to. It simply was a fact of life.

Your son was on the verge of being too spoiled. Maybe a little over the line. When he saw Mario he decided that would fit _perfectly_ for a friend, or whatever definition "friend" made up in his child-sized brain. He made a game out of tormentations, storming into your little decoy castles to screw around with Mario: his ploys always purposely failed, though if he actually tried he would probably still lose. Well his _dad_ did; he didn't have it in his blood to win.

But that didn't make him miserable, your son. He lived off of the thrill of it, his "games". When Mario and company made up their board games and orbs and dices and candy, the whole lot of it, your son leapt right on in to tease them and dragged you in on it too.

You had... fun.

That wasn't something usually associated with a rival, or the "good guys" as everyone called them—oh come _on_ they weren't _that_ good. Wasn't something you usually associated with anywhere in your life. Sure, your son, the joy he brought you, but nothing like _this_.

You never told them, your good guys, why you continually tormented them too.

They probably knew it, though. It was just who they were. Oh...

You weren't... so bad, were you? Well. You didn't think of it so. It was just different. You were different, they were different, everyone's just a little different.

Your son. You could... never consider him... _bad_. That just wasn't something you could do. Kamek, your goombas, your koopas.

No. They weren't bad.

Perhaps... _you_ weren't so bad either. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to laugh every now and then, to butt heads with Mario but not completely disregard him, not singe him into disrepair.

Yeah.

 **This is a lot more lighthearted than I thought it was gonna be xD Not complaining though, pff... I saw this article about a few long-living questions about the mario franchise as I was finishing this and one of the questions was like WHY DO MARIO AND PEACH PLAY MARIO KART AND STUFF WITH BOWSER? and the creators (Miyamoto answered the question) said that they see the mario characters almost like they can fill different roles depending on the story, going so far as to call them a big family or a troupe of actors xD if any of that made sense? I just... I dunno, I like that a lot. Haha.**


End file.
